Betrayal
by ProcrastinationQueen
Summary: A continuation of the final scenes of "Trial and Error". Not all stories are fairy tales. Please read and review!
1. Chapter 1

Disclaimer: These characters aren't mine – just borrowing from Barbara Hall and CBS. And, after this last episode, you can bet I don't want to claim Adam anyway. 

**Betrayal**

"But you had my heart, Adam. That's what you took with you when you went to…hook up with her."

"Jane-"

"No. We're done. It's over."

Joan walked swiftly from the room, barely glancing at Grace and Luke before heading for the nearest exit. Luke started to follow her, but Grace grabbed his arm.

"Dude, just let her go."

"We can't just leave her alone."

"Maybe that's what she needs right now."

Luke opened his mouth to respond, but he stopped when he saw Adam exit the classroom. "How could you do this to her!" he yelled.

"I'm sorry", Adam said in a tearful whisper. "I never meant – "

"You're sorry? That's all you have to say for yourself? You-"

"Enough!" Grace interjected, noticing that they were creating a scene. "Let's go, Luke."

"Grace…" Adam looked apologetically at his friend.

"Not now, Rove."

Grace pulled on Luke's arm, and with a final glare at Adam, he followed her out of the school. Adam stood in the middle of the hallway and watched them go, feeling almost as alone as he had when his mother died. What had he done?

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Joan walked out of the school and kept walking. She didn't have a particular destination in mind. She just walked because she didn't know what else to do. Her mind was racing. Was this really happening? Did Adam really cheat on her? Her Adam, her sweet, wonderful Adam? Tears continued to run down her cheeks as she remembered Bonnie in the hallway and what Adam had confessed to. How could he have done this? She loved him so much, and he said he loved her. Was sex so important to him that he was willing to throw that all away? Maybe she should have just slept with him that night after the concert. Then maybe he wouldn't have gone looking elsewhere. But then again, maybe he would have. Maybe he would have used her like he used Bonnie. And he thought Bonnie was a freak. He didn't even like her, and yet he could still… She didn't even want to complete the thought. She felt so sick inside.

This whole time they'd been planning their anniversary, he'd been lying and going behind her back. She had thought about changing her mind about having sex. She'd thought about possibly making their anniversary something more and giving herself to him. Remembering this thought brought another one into her mind. Would he have even told her about Bonnie if she hadn't come up to them today? If she and Adam had had sex, would he have kept having sex with Bonnie too? Her stomach turned once again. She continued wandering the streets of Arcadia, feeling lost and alone.

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Luke and Grace walked silently side by side after they left the school. Neither one knew what to say. Luke had been absolutely stunned by what Grace had told him, and Grace, even after a couple of days, still had trouble processing the fact that Adam had cheated on her friend. Those two were so stupid about each other, and she never saw something like this coming. They were silent for so long that Grace actually jumped a little when Luke finally spoke.

"What in the hell happened? This just doesn't seem like Adam at all."

"I don't know, dude. I couldn't believe it when he told me, either. I guess he got tired of waiting for Joan."

"But she loves him. And I thought he loved her."

"He does."

"Well, he's got a great way of showing that. How long had this been going on?"

"I don't know. He said a couple times. I don't suppose it matters much though."

Both fell silent for awhile until Luke spoke up again. "I'd never do that to you, Grace."

"Of course you wouldn't. I'd kill you," Grace replied, but it lacked her usual ferocity.

Once the pair got to Grace's house, Luke walked her to the door.

"I should probably go home. See if Joan is ok. Well, as ok as she's going to be right now, anyway."

"Right. IM me later and let me know how she's doing, ok?"

"Sure."

He kissed her goodbye and started walking toward his own home. As he turned onto Euclid, his steps slowed. He wasn't sure exactly what he was expecting, but he knew the scene in his house probably wouldn't be pretty. He'd been surprised at Joan's lack of hysterics at school after Adam confessed, though. She was crying when she left, but quiet and stunned too. This had completely blindsided her. "What an asshole," he thought to himself as he climbed the steps to the front porch and tentatively opened the front door. The house was pretty quiet as Luke entered, which surprised him.

"Hey, Geek, how's it going?" Kevin asked as he wheeled past him toward the kitchen.

"Hey, Luke, could you help set the table? Dinner's just about ready," Helen said as she spotted him.

Luke was a little confused. This was definitely not what he'd expected.

"Luke?" Helen asked questioningly. "Did you hear me? And where's your sister? Did she go to Adam's?"

"I, I don't know. She's not here? She left before Grace and I did. And she's definitely not at Adam's house," he added derisively.

"Luke, what's going on?" Helen, as well as Will and Kevin who'd come into the dining room were all looking at Luke as he struggled to find the words to explain what had happened.

"Adam and Joan broke up. She left in a hurry, and I figured she came home."

Will, Helen, and Kevin just stared at Luke in stunned silence before Helen recovered somewhat.

"They broke up? Do you know what happened?"

Luke took a deep breath before deciding to just plunge on in. "He cheated on her. With Bonnie." Luke was again met with stunned and silent stares.

"I don't believe it. Adam wouldn't do that. Are you sure?" asked Helen.

"Yeah. He told Grace a couple days ago. Apparently it's been going on for awhile, but Joan just found out today."

"Why would he do something like that?" Kevin wondered.

Luke really hated being in this position, but he figured he may as well tell them what he knew. "Well, um, I guess that since Joan wouldn't sleep with him, he found someone else who would. He barely even knows or likes Bonnie, but I guess that really didn't matter too much. He told Grace it was just about sex, and not to tell Joan. I don't know if he would have ever told her if Bonnie hadn't come up to them in the hall today."

"That little punk," said Kevin angrily. "I'll kill him."

Will's face darkened with anger as well, and Helen sat down heavily in a chair.

"Do you have any idea where she may have gone? Grace's maybe?"

"No. And I was just at Grace's house."

"Will, where could she be?"

"I don't know. I'll get in the car and start driving around."

Kevin decided he'd do the same, and Luke went to call Grace. Helen tried calling Joan's cell phone, but it was turned off. She left a voice mail and sat back down with the phone and her worry.

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Joan didn't know how long she'd been walking when she finally looked at her watch. She was cold and tired, and it was well past the time she should have been home. She also noticed she'd walked a lot farther than she realized. Fortunately, she also noticed a bus stop nearby. She boarded the next bus when it came and saw Old Lady God sitting in one of the seats and sat down next to her. Their conversation didn't make the pain go away, but the comforting embrace helped.

When she reached her house, she noticed that almost every light was on. She looked at her watch again, and realized her parents were probably worried about where she was since she was supposed to have been home hours ago. So much for her plan of sneaking upstairs to her room and hiding under the covers until the next century. Maybe she'd try it anyway, she thought as she opened the front door as quietly as she could.

"Joan?"

Joan froze at the sound of her mother's voice and then turned toward it. Her parents and brothers were in the living room (Kevin and Will had just returned from an unsuccessful search effort) and by the looks on their faces, Joan knew that they were all aware of what had happened with her and Adam. Helen got up from her seat and walked over toward her.

"We were so worried. We didn't know where you were."

"I'm sorry. I just needed to…walk for awhile."

"Are you – "

"Look, I don't want to talk about it, ok?"

"Honey."

"No. There's nothing to say. I loved him, but it wasn't enough…" With these words, Joan's face crumpled and her tears started again.

Helen gently guided her to the sofa and put her arms around her once they were seated.

"Why did he do this? What's wrong with me? Why wasn't I enough?" Joan sobbed as she looked at her mother with pain-filled eyes.

Helen's heart broke for her daughter. "I don't know, sweetheart. But there's nothing wrong with you. This is his fault, not yours."

Helen noticed the dark looks of rage on her husband's and sons' faces at this exchange. She was beginning to feel a bit murderous herself.

"I wondered why he was working so much all of a sudden," Joan continued. "He started coming by the bookstore when he got off work, and he was being so sweet. I thought it was because of our anniversary." She paused and drew in a shaky breath. "But he was lying the entire time. He was with her. Oh God…" Her stomach lurched as a new realization hit. "He went from her to me. He had sex with her and then came to make out with me."

Joan practically flew off the sofa and toward the bathroom, barely reaching her destination before emptying the contents of her stomach into the toilet. Helen and Will quickly followed, but Kevin and Luke only went as far as the kitchen. When Joan continued to heave long after her stomach was empty, and then started crying again, Kevin turned to Luke. "I feel like taking a little drive. Wanna join me?" Knowing he was planning on paying a visit to Adam, Luke readily agreed.

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Adam sat in his shed, the events of the afternoon replaying over and over in perfect detail in his mind thanks to his photographic memory. The look of revulsion, anger, and pain on Jane's face when he admitted he'd had sex with Bonnie would be an image that would haunt him forever. He was realizing it had never been "just sex" that didn't mean anything. It definitely meant something. It meant that he had just lost the most important person in his life. He loved Jane more than anything, and he wondered if she'd ever be able to forgive him or if he'd ever be able to get her back. He wearily leaned his head into his hands as the echo of the last words she'd spoken to him, "It's over", reverberated through his head. This was a nightmare.

It was getting late, but he didn't want to go inside and run into his dad, who would want to know what was wrong. When he heard the door to his shed open and someone step inside, he reluctantly looked up, expecting to see his father. He was startled to find himself looking into the angry faces of Joan's brothers.

"What the hell were you thinking, Rove! How could you do that to her!" demanded Kevin as he pinned Adam to his workbench with his wheel chair.

Adam opened his mouth to try to form an answer, but Kevin didn't give him a chance.

"And just how long did you think you could go on lying to her? Were you ever going to tell her you were cheating on her?"

"I wanted to tell her."

"And when would that have been? Before or after she eventually decided she was ready to sleep with you? Maybe you were trying to start your own little harem."

"It wasn't like that!"

"Oh really? And just what was it like?"

Adam didn't have an answer to this now any more than he did earlier in the day when Joan had asked a nearly identical question.

"Bonnie doesn't mean anything to me. It didn't mean anything."

"The hell it didn't!" Luke responded, sending a fist into Adam's face at the same time. "It means plenty to Joan! It means she's left with a broken heart and wondering what she did wrong or why she wasn't enough for you."

Adam slumped down against his workbench, completely defeated. Kevin backed away, and he and Luke headed for the door. Luke turned back after Kevin had begun to wheel himself toward the car. "Joan loved you so much, Adam. With all her heart. How could you just throw that away?

Luke disappeared into the darkness, and Adam placed his head on his arms and sobbed.

To be continued...


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

On Monday morning Grace was waiting for Luke in the biology closet. She'd had a family thing over the weekend that she had previously been dreading, but after what happened Friday, she had been relieved that she could be away from everything for a couple of days. She looked up as the door opened and Luke entered, grim faced.

"Hey."

"Hey."

"I'd ask how your weekend went, but the look on your face is pretty telling."

"Yeah."

"How is she doing?"

"How would you expect? She spent the weekend locked in her room crying."

Grace said nothing in response. What was there to say?

"How was your cousin's bar mitzvah?"

"Eh. About like you'd expect. Bratty kids and bad music."

Both of them fell silent for a few moments before Luke spoke again.

"So, what are we going to do about physics?

"What do you mean?"

"Well, they sit next to each other. I somehow doubt that's going to work out too well."

"Not much we can do. They have to face each other and try to move on somehow."

"She might try to kill him."

The bell rang then as Grace replied, "Well, we're about to find out."

Adam was already in the classroom when they arrived with his head down on the desk. The weekend had been awful. He hadn't been able to sleep or stop thinking about Jane. His father had seen the split lip Luke had given him, and Adam didn't feel he much of a choice but to tell him what had happened. He would have noticed something was wrong anyway and it wouldn't have been too long until he'd realized that he wasn't seeing Jane anymore. Adam felt lower than he'd ever felt after his father had chastised him, ending with "That's not how your mother and I raised you." He looked up as Grace and Luke approached, but put his head back down after seeing the murderous glare Luke shot him and the carefully composed look on Grace's face.

Joan stood outside the classroom, trying to gather the courage to enter. She'd begged her mother to let her stay home today. She even tried saying she was sick. Although that wasn't far from the truth. She had a killer headache from all of her crying, and if she saw Bonnie today she thought she might puke. She could skip, but her mom was right. She couldn't hide from him forever, no matter how much she wanted to. She had to face him sometime, so she may as well get it over with.

Taking a deep breath, she walked into the room. The first thing she noticed was silence. The second was almost everyone's eyes on her. Pretty much everyone had heard rumors about what had happened already and they were waiting to see what would happen now. She hesitated, but continued on to her seat, moving her chair as close to Grace's as possible and trying not to look at Adam.

He looked up as she sat down and tried to talk to her. "Jane, I-"

She still didn't look at him as she interrupted, "Not interested. Save it for your girlfriend."

Glynis and Freidman were watching the exchange, and Joan gave them a look that had them turning around in a hurry. She was actually happy when Lischak launched into one of her crazy lectures. When class ended, Joan shot out of her chair and the classroom like a rocket, not giving Adam a chance to say anything to her. He sadly watched her go. He turned to find Grace looking at him. "Dude, you're going to have to give her some time to deal with this."

"I know, but - "

"But nothing. You squashed her heart like a bug. She's not gonna get over that in a weekend."

He knew she was right as he watched her and Luke exit the classroom.

* * *

Grace sat in English class uncomfortable and upset. The three people closest to her were all hurting or angry. Joan was next to her, staring vacantly out the window just as Adam had done all through Spanish. She hadn't spoken a word to Grace all day and had barely looked at her. Grace knew Joan was upset that she hadn't told her about Adam, and she really didn't blame her. She blamed Adam. "Thanks a bunch, Rove, for sticking me in the middle of this mess," she thought. The bell rang, and Grace saw that Joan didn't even appear to have noticed. Grace took a seat on the desk ahead of her and faced her. 

"How long did you know something was going on?" Joan surprised her by asking.

"He told me the day before."

"You should have told me."

"Number one, Girardi, I don't get involved in stuff like this, and number two, it was Rove's responsibility to tell you. You needed to hear it from him, and I wasn't going to give him an out on that."

Joan nodded. She knew her friend was right. "Do you think he would have told me if Bonnie hadn't come up to us in the hall?"

"I don't know. The guilt may have gotten the better of him eventually."

"But what if I had slept with him?"

Grace didn't know how to respond to this, but wouldn't have had a chance anyway as Joan continued. "Would he have told me then? Or maybe he would have done this anyway. What if –"

"Dude! Enough with the 'what ifs'. Rove may not even have an answer for all of them, so don't expect yourself to."

"I can't help it. I just keep wondering why."

"Command Central for guys is three feet south of where it should be, that's why. C'mon, Girardi. It's creamed chicken day in the cafeteria. You don't want to miss out."

"You go." She put her head down on her arms on the desk. "I just wanna be by myself for awhile."

Grace knew the real reason was Joan didn't want to risk running into Adam or Bonnie, but she didn't call her on it and walked out of the classroom.

* * *

Helen approached her classroom before fifth period with dread. Assuming both had come to school today, she'd have to face Adam and Bonnie in class. She didn't know how she was going to maintain any semblance of professionalism when all she wanted to do was drown the two of them in a vat of paint. In her mind, she kept seeing her baby girl in pain and tears, asking her why this had happened. She'd had no answers for her. Even now that she'd had the weekend to process this, she still couldn't get her head around it. She loved Adam like one of her own kids, and it was inconceivable to her that he could have done something so thoughtless and hurtful. And yet he had. Deep down though, she knew she'd always love him, even as another image of his demise went through her mind. Praying for strength, she entered the classroom to begin the day's lesson. 

The time seemed to crawl past. She noticed the class was exceptionally quiet today, probably wondering how she was going to react. Helen tried to avoid looking at Bonnie or Adam as much as possible, but it was difficult. She was sure she wasn't doing a good job in hiding her feelings when she saw Adam flinch when she looked over at him. Well, glared at him. She knew she shouldn't, but she couldn't help it. She'd never been more relieved to hear the bell ring to end the period so she didn't have to try not to look at either of them any more, although she did take some satisfaction in noticing that both looked absolutely miserable.

She sat at her desk and began to look over her notes for her next class, but she looked up when she heard someone approach.

"Mrs. G. –"

"Adam, unless this is directly related to class, I don't want to hear it. You should consider that a general rule from here on out."

"I'm so so sorry about all of this."

Helen sighed. She didn't want to talk to him, but there was no way she could avoid it forever. "Sorry's not going to cut it. You hurt her in a way that... I can't even begin to tell you how badly you hurt her."

"I'll do anything to make this up to her."

"No."

"No?"

"You can't. And I want you to stay away from her."

"But-"

"Leave her alone, Adam. You've hurt her enough." Helen couldn't look at him any longer without wanting to throttle him, so she got up and walked out of the room.

* * *

Luke had wondered why Grace had intercepted him in the hall after his last class and suggested that he walk Joan home until he saw his sister. She was pale and looked a bit dazed when he caught up with her outside of the school. 

"Joan, are you ok?"

He didn't get a response. The approached the crosswalk and Luke stopped. Joan didn't. He quickly grabbed her arm to pull her back onto the curb with him. "Joan!"

She finally looked at him, and he saw tears in her eyes. "I saw them talking."

So that was it. "Ouch. I'm sorry."

She just looked away as they continued walking. He knew there was really nothing more he could say, so he stayed silent, mentally cursing Adam yet again for hurting his sister.

"Where's Grace? Aren't you two supposed to be making out in front of the frogs?"

"She, uh, had somewhere to be." He strongly suspected that somewhere was Adam's but decided not to say that. But Joan already suspected the same thing.

"I'll bet I know where."

"Don't be mad at her, Joan. She's really stuck in the middle here."

"I'm not, and I know. They've been friends forever and I'd never ask her choose between us. Don't you do that either."

"I won't."

They approached their house, and Joan turned to him on the porch. "Luke, promise me something."

"What?"

"Don't ever do anything like this to Grace. Break up with her if you ever want someone else, but just don't lie to her."

"I won't. I promise."

* * *

It was well past dinnertime when Will finally got home from the station. Karon's false confession had really caused a lot of extra work. And there was still the real killer to catch. Melissa Hoyt wasn't at the forefront of his mind right now though. His own little girl was. Going to school today and seeing Adam had to have been tough. Will headed upstairs as soon as he got in the house. He paused by Joan's room and was relieved that he didn't hear her crying as she'd been most of the weekend. He's wanted to confront that boy and pound some sense into him, but he suspected that's what Kevin and Luke had mysteriously disappeared to do on Friday night. He continued to his bedroom found Helen in bed, reading. 

"How was school?"

Helen knew he what he really meant. "Will, are you sure there isn't some legal way we could kill him?

"What happened? Did Adam do something else? Is there more to this than we already knew?"

"No." Helen sighed deeply. "I just can't stand seeing her hurting like this."

Will nodded. It was killing him too.

"And it's not just that," Helen continued. "He's made her doubt herself, her decisions. This is going to affect every relationship she has from now on."

Will's jaw clenched in anger. What in the hell had Adam been thinking? He hadn't been, and that was the problem. Joan was so special. Why hadn't he been able to remember that?

Helen spoke again and pulled him from his thoughts. "He told me he was sorry and that he'd try to make it up to her. He wants her back."

"He better stay away from her after what he did. He's nowhere near good enough for her." Will wondered if there was anyone good enough for his daughter, but in his mind it certainly wasn't Adam Rove. Not anymore.

* * *

Joan lay in her bed, silent tears slipping down her cheeks and onto the pillow she held tightly to her chest. Despite what he'd done, she missed Adam so much it hurt. This hurt almost as much as losing Judith did. She just hoped it wouldn't take as long to get over. Five months have passed and she still missed Judith every day. Exhausted from her tears, and unwilling to think about the situation any more that night, she drifted off to sleep, hoping she'd find the strength to get through another day. 


End file.
